All PokerSoup.com Blogs

Sadly, in an effort to keep the spam down, we've removed the ability for people to create a blog on their own. Too many BS posts about gold sneakers and long term elder care.

If you'd like a blog, just message us using the Feedback link at the bottom right. Tell us who you are and what you'd like to blog about. You don't have to write about poker all the time, but keep it related to the theme of this site. And no mentions of Florida vacation destinations, please.

An awesome benefit of our recent migration is that Pokersoup now uses SSL everywhere, throughout the whole site. This means all of your interactions and browsing on pokersoup are encrypted can't be viewed by a 3rd party (at least, not without a whole lot of effort. Hi NSA!).

We're using free, simple, and highly recommended certificates provided by Let's Encrypt, whose mission is to get every website to use SSL all the time. A mission Jason and I completely support.

Pokersoup.com is now running on a fresh new server! This brings to an end our old server hosted at Rackspace Cloud that had been running since 2008. It served us and you well: at one point the server had an uptime of over 3 years, and the server process itself had been running for over 1 year without restarting. Pretty good!

Unfortunately, Rackspace mandated that we migrate this old beast to their new architecture, and it wasn't going well. Faced with a fresh server build, we decided it was time to say bye to Rackspace for good.

Now we're moving on to a fresh new setup with Linode. We're running a modern Linux distro with SSD disks, Xeon E5 processors, and quadruple the RAM of the previous system.

Oh, and it's half the price of Rackspace. Suck it, Rackspace.

Jason and I have done a lot of testing, but we're hoping to hear from our users if anything goes wrong. Just hit that feedback link in the lower-right and let us know if you're having problems!

Hey all. I'm Andy and this is my blog. Sure, it's on a poker site and it will be about poker often, I'll also infuse a variety of things that might be in the news, or just on my mind.

Tonight is one of my regular poker nights, and typically the biggest of the week. I usually play Tuesday and Thursday nights at a pub near my home. They run a freeroll game that typically gets 40 players. The purse is $110 ($75 for first, $25 for second and a $10 bounty on the tourney operator.). Most of the players are regulars, so I know how they play for the most part. When I started playing there about 4 years ago, I made the final table on a very regular basis (I'd say 80%). I won 5 times within the first 6 months. Then I had a long cold spell which I snapped a few months ago. The last few weeks have seen a couple final table appearances, and a 4th place finish last week.

I'll post again after tonight's game and track my hands, etc. Hopefully, it's not a short night.

Hey everyone, after much thought over playing Magic The Gathering more then poker over the last couple of years. I am ready to sell my collection I am going to hold onto it until about Feb. With this in mind and discussing with Jason. I am ready to play more holdem and focus free time towards that. I just wanted to make a quick post with what is going on lately, With an approximate bankroll starting around 1,500 I will be playing as much as I can once everything is sold and figured out. So expect more posts on my progress after everything settles down.

During the 20th Century poker has transformed from a recreational activity played by male enthusiasts, to a widely popular spectator activity with huge prizes and an international fan base full of online casino fans. The World Poker Tour gives players the chance to win huge prizes. Below are some of the most successful poker players around.

Antonio EsfandiariThe Iranian Magician is the undisputed king of poker. As of July 2013 his total tournament winnings exceed $25.5 million. At the age of 26 he won his first World Poker Tour title in L.A. taking home close to $1.4million. He has placed first in six tournaments and has three World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets. His most recent price was a cool $329,339 for a fourth place finish in the Five Star World Championship Event in December 2012.

Sam TrickettNottingham born Trickett is the most successful British poker player of all time. He has eight first place finishes and three bracelets. Trickett made his name in 2012 when he scooped a colossal $10,112,001 in the WSOP Big One for One Drop. With total prize winnings of $19,752,481, he is the second most successful poker player of all-time.

Erik SeidelNew Yorker Seidel is a veteran on the poker tour; he finished second in his first major tournament, the 1988 WSOP. With an impressive 23 first place finishes as well as eight WSOP bracelets; it???s no surprise that he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2010. Seidel total winnings come to $17,285,021.

Daniel NegreanuAnother veteran of the tour, the Canadian has amassed an impressive $16,532,751 in winnings, placing first in 34 tournaments and collecting four WSOP bracelets. He has also taught a variety of celebrities the game, notably actor Tobey Maguire.

Hi everyone. I am a grad student doing research as to what drives people to specific online poker sites. I have heard that there are lots of different reasons and am really interested in learning the major points. Please rate the following factors/elements (giving one to least important, 10 to the most important).

The mathematical aspect of poker can be a little unnerving for some players, but with a little bit of practice, a sound understanding of the fundamentals can go a long way.

One of these fundamentals is pot odds.

Pot odds are a mathematical expression that presents you with your risk-to-reward ratio for calling a bet. It is a quick calculation that you make when you are deciding whether to call a bet, particularly connected to action when you are holding a drawing hand.

The calculation of pot odds takes into consideration the ratio of the pot relative to how much it is to make the call.

Example: The action folds around to you in the small blind. At this time the size of the pot is your opponent???s big blind and your small blind.

If you choose to call it is going to cost you another small blind. If you break your opponent big blind down into two small blinds then you can see that your cost of a call is 3 to 1.

Now let???s imagine that you do make the call and after a series of plays you and your opponent find yourselves at the river. The pot is now $1,000 strong and you have one pair. You check and the big blind bets $200. The pot is now $1,200 and it costs you just $200 to call. 1.200/200 = 6 to 1.

So, you should call if you believe these odds are good enough to justify the money that you put into the pot. The key criteria being do I have a better than 6 to 1 chance of winning this pot should I call? Or put another way, does your opponent have a hand that is worse than yours 14% of the time?